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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25954507">Cartography</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/inkforhumanhands/pseuds/inkforhumanhands'>inkforhumanhands</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Daredevil Ficlets [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Daredevil (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Canon Compliant, Episode: s03e10 Karen, Father-Daughter Relationship, Ficlet, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Guilt, Implied/Referenced Drug Use</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 08:07:19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>440</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25954507</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/inkforhumanhands/pseuds/inkforhumanhands</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>It was no wonder nations had disputes over history when even among two people who had ostensibly shared the same loss certain maps were drawn up different.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Karen Page &amp; Paxton Page</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Daredevil Ficlets [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1880257</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>13</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Cartography</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>The events in this fic aren't very explicitly laid out but they follow Karen's backstory as shown in season 3 episode 10.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It was no wonder nations had disputes over history when even among two people who had ostensibly shared the same loss certain maps were drawn up different. But maybe that had more to do with finding a way forward than remembering the past. Drawing lines with a shaky pen in one hand and a flashlight in your mouth choking you in exchange for the light. We all had to give up something.</p>
<p>Karen slipped off her own and stepped into her mom’s empty shoes. The diner wasn’t going to stay afloat itself under those leftover medical bills, and her father wasn’t up for it. He kept tracing over the same lines. She tried not to blame him for doubling backwards, for pretending that most things were the same as they had been. After all, how much room for accuracy was there when everything was bound up in feelings? Certain details pushed their way out of the nib to form mountains that crowded the skyline, while others shrank back away from the parchment. It wasn’t a decision, what lingered and what faded.</p>
<p>That didn’t stop Karen from trying. When she did blow, she found she could choose any patch of wasteland and just sit in it. Cocaine lit up the grooves where her pen had pressed down without leaving any ink behind. It made her remember, and it made her forget. She could forgive all that needed forgiving; she was transcendent.</p>
<p>It went on like that until her brother dragged out her old boat, reminded her of a continent she once swore to explore. She told him she wasn’t quite done with this one. It was a lie, but only in as much as she’d been trying to add to a map that wasn’t hers all along. Had it been her that couldn’t see things for what they were? Mistaking the river mouth for the source? Nobody could ask her mother how she felt anymore.</p>
<p>And then things happened the way they happen when two powers hold different maps and a disputed history. Fire and a gun and who was she even fighting? It didn’t take all that much for the landscape to change or for a city to fall, just a few hits and a guardrail. Paper was easily torn.</p>
<p>Seated across from her father and she saw it rip further; there were precious few places to go from here. She scrutinized both maps side by side for any destination at all before her father pointed wordlessly to the one feature they now had in common: a massive fault line.</p>
<p>Finally they could agree on the bounds of her territory.</p>
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